By Eileen Millard news@thewoodstockindependent.com The Woodstock Fine Arts Association will begin its 62nd season this October with a full roster of six speakers and presentations running through April 2026. “This will be an exceptional Creative Living season,” said Mary Ellen Prindiville, chairwoman of the WFAA Creative Living Committee. “We have many loyal patrons who return […]
Creative Living speaker weaves fashionable tale Poet and essayist Alison Hawthorne Deming will be the next speaker in the Creative Living series at 10 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 16, at the Opera House. According to a news release, Deming’s book, “A Woven World,” stitches together two seemingly disparate endeavors: high-fashion dressmaking and ocean-edge fishing. The book […]
By Eileen Millard news@thewoodstockindependent.com Whether it is screenplays, novels, nonfiction, video game scripts, or even business writing, author Jay Bonansinga says there is one thing that never changes, one constant: the story telling. “I don’t make any distinctions,” he said. “I always saw it as the same realm of creativity, called story telling. It is […]
For Creative Living speaker Riva Lehrer, art is powerful, radical, and political. “My art is about being enthralled with people being enthralled with who they are,” said the artist, author, curator, and Northwestern University faculty member. “No one wants to be tolerated – we all want to be enthralling.” A child born in 1958 with […]
As the AIDS epidemic swept through the United States in the 1980s, news coverage tended to focus on New York City and San Francisco. Largely ignored was the Chicago story, including a pioneering AIDS unit at Illinois Masonic Hospital (now Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center) that became a model for the nation. That story gets […]
Zac Bleicher, executive director of the Edgar Miller Legacy, said he hears a common response after giving a presentation about the 20th century Chicago artist. “Miller’s work is so compelling,” they tell Bleicher. “How is he not well-known?” Bleicher will take the stage at the Woodstock Opera House at 10 a.m. Thursday, April 21, to […]
A polygamist, a thief, and a cheat, James Strang proclaimed himself divine king of earth, heaven, and the 78-square-mile Beaver Island, Mich., before he was assassinated in 1856. “The most infamous American you’ve likely never heard of,” Strang is the subject of the next Creative Living presentation at the Woodstock Opera House, at 10 a.m. […]
Author Stephen Coss calls the 2020 cancellation of the NCAA March Madness tournament his “Harvard commencement moment.” “Come again?” you say. Several months after it began its deadly course through 1721 Boston, the prevalence of smallpox forced the cancellation of Harvard’s commencement, traditionally a citywide celebration. To Coss, the termination of the annual basketball tournament […]
When Liesl Olson delivers her presentation on the Chicago Avant-Garde at the Jan. 20 installment of the Creative Living Series, she will tell the stories of five women from the Chicago arts scene in the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s whom she believes can inspire her audience members to take risks. “I hope that [the five […]
Jacqueline Saper remembers the Iranian Revolution of 1978-79 as “an absolutely chaotic time.” Just 17 years old when the uprising against the U.S.-backed Mohammad Reza Shah commenced in 1978, Saper was the daughter of an Iranian father and English mother and part of a tiny Jewish community in Tehran. “I always felt I was an […]
Larry Lough is editor of The Independent and reports local news.
Janet Dovidio has been a freelance correspondent for The Independent for eight years.
Susan W. Murray wrote for The Independent, covering various beats, from 2005 to 2008.
Tricia Carzoli is a freelance writer and photographer that on community news.
